DESCRIPTION: This application requests continued support for a predoctoral research training program in CMB at Baylor. The training grant program is based in the interdisciplinary CMB graduate program that includes participation of 73 faculty members from 11 different departments. The CMB program, which was initiated in the fall of 1988 with four students, has grown to include 36 students, and as of May, 1994 five students will have graduated. The director of the CMB program, Dr. Savio Woo, is a Professor in the Department of Cell Biology and in the Institute for Human Genetics, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. He received the Ph.D. degree in biochemistry from the University of Washington in 1971. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of British Columbia, he joined the faculty at Baylor in 1973. His research interests include the molecular basis of human metabolic disorders, development of technologies for somatic gene therapy, creation of animal models of human deficiencies by homologous recombination in embryonic stem cells, and tissue-specific gene expression and regulation. He has trained 1 graduate student and 30 postdoctoral fellows, and currently has 2 predoctoral students and 6 postdoctoral fellows (1 was a graduate student in Dr. Woo's laboratory) working in his laboratory. The associate director, Susan Berget, received her Ph.D. degree in biochemistry from the University of Minnesota and was a postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research interests are focused on the molecular mechanisms of pre-mRNA splicing and polyadynlation. Dr. Berget has trained eight predoctoral students and three postdoctoral fellows, and has four predoctoral students working in her laboratory. She will become director of the program in the near future. The administration of the program is overseen by the Steering Committee which is the governing body of the CMB program. The Committee is comprised of the director and associate director, at least one faculty member from each participating basic science department and a CMB student. Three of the faculty representatives are full professors, one is an associate professor and three are assistant professors. This Committee sets admission criteria, screens and interviews applicants, recommends students for admission, counsels students, and revises the core curriculum as needed. The director chairs this Committee and represents the CMB program to the Executive Council of the Graduate School; the associate director coordinates student-related activities of the Committee and represents the CMB program to the Graduate School Promotion Committee.